


would there be another list of 99 things that I'd missed? a.k.a. The Unfortunate and Completely Avoidable Case of the Missing Polyfiber Sweater

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Suri's Burn Book
Genre: Gen, Mystery, Plucky Girl Detectives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violet enlists the aid of Suri's dedicated notations in the search for a classmate's wardrobe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	would there be another list of 99 things that I'd missed? a.k.a. The Unfortunate and Completely Avoidable Case of the Missing Polyfiber Sweater

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/gifts).



> Thanks to Kim and Drea for looking this over.

"Suri?"

_Hold on. Affleck mistake is speaking to me. I'll try not to go blind looking in her general direction._

Suri sighed hugely, tucking her pen (a gift from Oprah) in between the gilt pages of her notebook, and finally, laboriously, looked up to find the bland face of Violet Affleck peering curiously in her direction. Suri raised an eyebrow in lieu of questioning the girl. Naturally, Violet didn't pick up on any sort of social clue, including this one. "Well?" Suri tapped her beige-painted fingernail on the desk. "Go on."

Violet sniffed -- not out of disdain, but probably to adjust the mucus level in her sinuses. Heathen. She poked at her glasses, a hole in her sweater, and finally at Suri's desk. "Weren't you listening?" 

The answer to _that_ should have been obvious. Sometimes, when Suri found herself in the throes of excess energy and emotion, she actually felt _sorry_ for Violet Affleck. For her intense awkwardness, for her fashion choices -- could they even be identified as such -- for her presence in Suri's second grade classroom. Mostly the latter.

"Kingston lost his sweater. Teacher says we're all to help find it."

Suri _may_ have rolled her eyes. "As if that's any loss," she said, _sotto voce_. 

Violet wrinkled her nose, giving her already sad face the appearance of a cat smelling something sour. "Kingston _loves_ that sweater, Suri. Imagine if someone stole your..." she struggled to come up with the appropriate analogy, as if anything of Suri's could even fall into the same realm as a sweater belonging to Kingston Rossdale. "Your shoes!" Violet finished, triumphant, with a thrust of her glasses up her Midwestern nose. 

Acting out of sheer self-preservation, Suri immediately tucked her crossed ankles further underneath her chair. Her demi-heeled Kors originals would _not_ be brought into this little classroom adventure. They had done _nothing_ wrong. 

Taking a long, restorative breath, Suri closed her eyes for a moment before withering Violet Affleck beneath her steely gaze. "Had my shoes been stolen, I would have noticed far quicker than the onset of recess, and instead of resorting to the bedlam of allowing the school's plucky girl detective" -- she flared her nostrils and carefully tucked an errant hair behind her ear -- "to lead the investigation, the proper authorities would have long ago been called."

As if completely unaffected by Suri's carefully chosen and executed attempt at intimidation, Violet merely shrugged and tugged at her sagging leggings. She was, Suri reminded herself and curbed the rising taste of bile, wearing snow boots once again. As if winter weather were an excuse to look anything but put-together and fabulous. "I just figured since you're always writing in that notebook of yours, maybe we could look and see when Kingston's sweater was last in his possession." Violet grinned. She'd lost a tooth recently. The inevitable process of aging biology was doing nothing for any attempts at refinement. Violet looked like a homeless ballerina from the wrong side of the tracks. (That is, Suri amended, fingers itching for the answering whisper of her pen on paper, _every_ side of the tracks. Railroads are for those too abandoned by good fortune for private jets.)

"What a convincing appeal!" Suri purred, before remembering that sarcasm is the lowest form of comedy. "And I'm sure you just expect me to hand over my innermost thoughts."

"Well, it made sense to me." Violet raised her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug ending in a little shifting dance. She was horrendous. Suri prayed that no one was taking note of their physical proximity, though it would be clear to any thoughtful observer that Suri, seated and cornered by the bouncing and sniffing Affleck, was the victim here. "Teacher asked _everyone_ to help."

Without the merest twinge of guilt in the face of such uncalculated perseverance, Suri flipped her notebook open, removed the pen and handed the open pages to Violet. 

"I'm in here," Violet said, quietly, after taking a moment to read, turning the page back, following Suri’s elegant scrawl with her finger.

"Believe me, it isn't something to aspire to." Suri composed a mental note to make Katie purchase additional hand sanitizer. She had no idea where Violet's grubby fingers had been before they held the sacred pages of Suri's notations.

Violet used the back of her hand to adjust her glasses, sniffed, and then, slowly, removed them. "Is this really what you think of me? Of all of us?" She closed the book, finding (as Suri well knew) no clues to the whereabouts of Kingston's terrible sweater other than the bi-weekly notation of its continued existence.

Returning the notebook to Suri's desk, Violet remained clear-eyed. She stared directly into Suri's face (which offered no remorse, or guilt, or shame as Suri certainly didn't feel any). She didn't -- as Suri had often imagined -- run from the room sobbing, loudly bemoaning every sartorial choice of the past six years. She didn't squish up her face in yet another uncouth show of emotion. She didn't tear at her tulle accessories and stomp on them with her snow boots. She didn't punch Suri, or kick, or swear. 

Instead, Violet Affleck placed a cool hand on Suri's balled fist. She tilted her head, and her split-end decorated braid dropped to her shoulder. "Those things you wrote, Suri, they aren't very nice," she said, squeezing gently. Suri felt nothing. She remained seated with perfect posture, her pen still in her right hand, her left still trapped in Violet's grasp. She didn't look away, she... couldn't. 

Violet squeezed again, offering a tentative smile, her missing tooth yet again announcing its (lack of) presence. "I forgive you, Suri." And once the words were there between them, irreversible, Violet shoved her glasses back on her face and turned away, Suri assumed, to return to the hopeless quest of retrieving Kingston's sweater. 

"He should check his backpack," Suri spoke, suddenly, surprising herself not only at the words themselves, but at their intent, and at the way her voice caught in the spaces. "Kingston Rossdale is as careless with his possessions as he is at dressing in the morning."


End file.
